Share Your Experience--Data Visualization Project

Share your experience creating and implementing a data visualization project. What was your project and who was your audience? What were your successes and challenges? Do you feel your project enhanced visual literacy skills?

Comments (10)

Teaching with digital visualizations allows students to truly visualize and analyze data, particularly when it is an interactive model that they can engage with. A piece they can not only take data from, but add their own research to, so they can expand upon the lesson.

I used this information on a self assigned infographics project on Sustainable vs Industrial Food for individuals and organizations committed to growing and distributing the food supply in America. An Infographic is a visual representation of a story, article, idea, and/or group of statistics. Basically Data Visualization and Infographics are the same.

Getting started was the hardest part for me. I wasn't quite sure what images to create, how detailed the illustrations should be, and what content should be emphasized. This projected helped me to understand the important elements of visual literacy which are:

This session came at the perfect time. Every year our school takes about three weeks to do a grade level project. The project is to show students that what they are learning in school is applicable to the "real world."

In our project specifically, we have developed a service learning project, where students spend about 6 days working with different non-profit agencies that help different serve a variety of people in our area (ie, veterans, homeless, elementary kids). We not only want to teach students to learn to serve, but also what the purpose of each of these organizations.

With the data visualization project, we can now have students look at the data from our state and represent it in an easily understood visual representation. The representation will help solidify the mission of each the organizations that we work with.

This session make me realize how boundless the possibilities are. This visual way of communicating is exciting and it causes your to remember lots of information easily. My project focuses on a survey of ways students spend their summer vacation. our sample data is two hundred students ages 12-16 years. This is our first time using Illustator

My project for Data Visualization or infographics was created in Illustrator CC. My target audience is my students and anyone else wishing to understand the creative process. My students often grumble when I insist that they complete the first couple of stages in the Creative Process, but it is necessary. Even professionals in all design and art related industries use these first stages of the creative process when completing projects for clients or their companies. Having this visualization posted in my classroom or added to presentations that introduce my next assignment is a necessary addition for reteaching and reviewing this essential process for any project they undertake in my courses. I think this project was beneficial in helping me to create better presentations for my classes in the future. It does take some sketching and brainstorming to find the right fit and arrangement of the data, as well as choosing eye catching illustrative properties that will enhance the information delivery rather than distract or turn the viewer off.

With the whole push towards visual literacy and text meaning all manner of visual communications, this was an excellent process for my students to show how to communicate ideas with limited written words but communicating through imagery. As I work in primary grades 1-3, mostly the choice was to colour code the states to a key indicating population size. A couple of students elected to use icons to represent quantity either by size or with a key e.g. 1 image =1 million people. A great link into scale and ratios for mathematics. Visually though, all the children including poorer readers could make comments about the information shown in the imagery with a quick glance, demonstrating the power and impact of data visualisation.

I have a concern. I don't teach Adobe products and neither do some of my fellow teachers and so I can use Adobe's free webinars and learn basics enough to teach my students to make something but it is just basic and the time I spend teaching a skill is less time allowed for teaching content. Any suggestions?

The experience of creating and implementing a data visualisation project was engaging,challenging and allowed experimentation. It was engaging as it allowed the development of a creative visual way to display data. It was challenging as it required learning of new programs, tools and skills. It also allowed me to experiment with other data visualisation tools, especially those that can be used on an ipad.

The course on teaching with data visualization has taught me a whole new approach to looking at data with students. I feel that in the past this was done off computer via posters, or in an un-dynamic way, and that even then the students didn't always "get the picture." I feel that this approach could also have a bigger impact beyond the walls of the classroom, helping them to see the real world application of this data as well.

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